Read The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) Online
Authors: John C. Wright
The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1)
The Last Guardian of Everness
T
OR
B
OOKS BY
J
OHN
C
.
W
RIGHT
THE GOLDEN AGE
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant
The Golden Transcendence
THE WAR OF THE DREAMING
The Last Guardian of Everness
Mists of Everness
(forthcoming)
The
LAST
GUARDIAN
of
EVERNESS
BEING THE FIRST PART OF
THE WAR OF THE DREAMING
John C. Wright
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
New York
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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
THE LAST GUARDIAN OF EVERNESS
Copyright © 2004 by John C. Wright
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Edited by David G. Hartwell
Book design by Mary A. Wirth
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wright, John C. (John Charles), 1961–
The last guardian of everness / John C. Wright.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book”
ISBN 0-3I2-8487I-4 (acid-free paper)
EAN 978-03I2-8487I-2
I. Title.
PS3623.R54L37 2004
8I3'.6—dc22
200404I258
First Edition: August 2004
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
To those who serve
in every war
to watch and guard our safety
as we sleep
and from us keep
the terror of the enemy
this phantasy
with respect
is dedicated
Contents
1
The Forgotten Wardens of the Dreaming
5
Beyond the Gates of Greater Slumber
8
The Strange and Ancient House Unchanging
9
The Library of the Dream-Lords
11
The Five Names of Lesser Mystery
18
Battle Before the High House
20
“My Dwelling Is in Skule Skerry”
22
The Last Defense of Everness
The Last Guardian of Everness
1
The
Forgotten Wardens
of the
Dreaming
I
Upon a midnight in midsummer, in an unchanging ancient house upon the coast, in the year when he was a boy no more and a man not yet, Galen Way- lock heard the far-off sound of the sea-bell tolling slowly in his dream.
Galen woke. His eyes were wide with terror and astonishment, and he had clawed the bedsheets to either side of him into sweat-stained knots. The moonlight fell across the bed from the diamond-shaped panes of his bedchamber window. The roof and walls were all dark wood, hidden in shadows. Outside came the soft and restless crashing of the sea waves on the cliffs below the house.
The melancholy peal was silent, now: his waking ears heard only earthly noises.
“It hasn’t really happened!” he muttered feverishly to himself. “It hasn’t really, honestly, finally happened! Not after all this time! Not to me!”
If tradition were to be trusted, fifteen centuries and more had passed since the First Warden of the Order fell asleep beneath an oak tree in Glastonbury, mistletoe and ivy growing in his hair, to await the warning voice of that elfin bell echoing, mystical and furtive, across the star-lit waves of oceans only dreamers know.
Galen kicked away the covers and felt around for the lantern.
His fingers brushed it, and he heard it topple and roll away across the nightstand, to drop to the floor. With a grunt of disgust, he reached down to where his jeans were crumpled on the floorboards and found the pocket with his electric flashlight in it.
He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, flashlight gleaming in his right hand, left hand cupped to catch the light. He was staring at a tiny burn mark in his palm. He sat for a moment, breathing hard, flexing his fingers and wincing at the tiny pain, eyes wide with astonishment.
Then he leaped to his feet, called out.
A moment later, Galen ran breathlessly into the parlor downstairs, where his Grandfather Lemuel sat before the fireplace where two logs crackled, blazing. All along the mantelpiece, a dozen candles were burning. Above the mantel, carved in stone, was a shield bearing the sign of a winged horse rampant above two crossed keys. A motto inscribed below bore the words: “Patience and Faithfulness.”
Across the room, facing the escutcheon, was an old oil painting of a dark-haired, dark-eyed man wearing a black frock and conical black miter. On a chain of office he wore a heavy gold key. In the figure’s lap, an ivory equine skull with a single spiral horn was resting. The painting was done in a stiff, formal style, heavy with shadows.
Grandfather Lemuel stirred and put aside the book in his hand. “Shut off that light. If you must creep at night, use the lantern. Ever since you came back from college, you have become most lax and careless about the Rules of the House.”
Galen snapped off the flashlight, and the circle of light at his feet disappeared. Impatiently he said, “Grampa, listen!”
Grandfather Lemuel said heavily, “Your father also never understood why our family lives this way. He never believed, never had faith. A man can be perfectly comfortable without modern plumbing or electricity.”
Anger interrupted Galen’s urgency. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about him like he was dead! All he did was join the army and move out.”
“It is not I, but higher powers, who account your father’s lack of faith as a treason to our family’s ancient promise. He never believed the time would come. . .” Grandfather Lemuel’s head drooped, his mouth pursed into a sullen frown.
“Grampa! It’s come!”
Grandfather Lemuel straightened, blinking. “What’s that, boy?”
“I heard the sea-bell.”
“Wh—?!”
“Just now. This evening. As I stood my watch along the Outward Wall.”
No expression showed on Grandfather Lemuel’s features, but a hard glint of suppressed excitement came into his eye. “We must be cautious. In your dream, did one of the Seven Signs come forth from Vindyamar?”
“I saw a Sign and received a Summons. The image was a sea-bird carrying a lantern.”
Lemuel muttered. “A lantern? Lantern. . .? Hm. Mm. Rod, Ring, Wand, Bow, Titan, Grail. . . Horn? Odd. Perhaps a torch could symbolize the titan’s blood, but . . .a lantern . . . ? A lantern is not one of the Seven . . .” Then, straightening up, Grandfather Lemuel said to Galen: “How do you know this was a true dream, come through the gate of horn? Did you perform the Three Tests?”
“Flying; Reading; Observing your hands. Grandfather Lemuel, you know I know the tests! I was in the Deep Dreaming. It was a true dream. And I heard the alarm we’ve been waiting for, for all these years. I heard it. I heard the sea-bell.” All this came out in one excited rush of words.
Grandfather Lemuel raised his hands. “We mustn’t be too hasty. In the
time of the Third Warden of Everness, Alfcynnig, he thought he heard the alarm ring out, and he called the Unsleeping Champion away from Rome to defend the Tower of Vortigern in Wessex; and this allowed the unguarded city to fall to the Goths of Totila. The Sixty-First Warden, Sylvanius Way- lock, called up the storm-princes to whelm the Armada for Elizabeth, and we were cursed out of England for that presumption, by the White Coven, whose charge we had usurped, and had to move this house, stone by stone, to the New World. When the Seventy-Ninth Warden, my Grandfather Phineas Waylock, heard the sea-bell, he raised the Stones and rendered the High Summons. But the sound was no true call; it was only the tumult of a leviathan tangled in the phantom nets of Vindyamar, whose lashing tail shook the crystal belltower, and set the bell to swinging. The Stones of Everness were angered to be roused from slumber for so light a cause, and my grandfather lost his sight in the struggle to force the stones to quietness again. . . Had he sent to the Queens for word, his eyes might have been spared. . .”